Thinking critically about short-term missions

One of my good friends, Ronne Rock, recently wrote a post on her blog about the value of short-term missions. It is well-written (her stuff always is) and thoughtful (if you know her, you wouldn't ever think she's not thinking about orphans!). You should add her blog, twitter and facebook feeds--not to mention her great Instagram photos--to your daily reading.

If you're not familiar with the argument, short-term missions are basically the few-days-long trips to some faraway (in distance or culture) place to do something "Christian." Churches have been in this practice for decades, given the relatively low cost travel our modern USAmerican culture has brought us. The world has shrunk for sure.

But there's been a backlash in recent years. Many both inside and outside the Church have argued that short-term missions have done more harm than good. I've never been one to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water, so as a guy who has seen the good, bad and ugly in short-term missions, I wanted to share a few thoughts based on Ronne's experiences that are vital to the success of any relational endeavor, but especially when it comes to short-term missions, whether you're heading across your community or across the ocean.

First, it's vital to make sure you're exporting love, not USAmerican culture. Every culture is blind to the places where their cultural values shape their perception of the structure and message of the gospel and the kingdom of heaven. Hours of challenging due-diligence is mandatory for churches heading into a different culture than our own. This is true whether you're heading from Dallas to Antigua, or from suburbia to inner city, or from urban to rural. We need to adopt as one of our core beliefs the respect for cultures and their differences, and ensure that whatever work we do has thoughtfully removed as much cultural baggage to the gospel as possible.

Second, it should be about building relationships, not accomplishing a task. As Ronne points out, it's easy to do the same VBS, backyard Bible club, wall-painting, school supply providing projects week after week, year after year, because, quite frankly, that's easy. And while we genuinely want to positively impact the world, we prefer to do it in an easy and comfortable fashion, except for certain "creature comforts" we're willing to give up on the trip. We don't (usually) mind it being a little too hot or cold, drinking only bottled water, cramming into small vans, etc during the trip itself, but we don't spend enough time on the prep work around culture, values, and long-term, impact, we're just too busy. Churches and groups going on trips have traditionally looked for a variety of trips and projects over the course of a few years. That's probably because we start with the idea that the trips are about our own group's experience. The best mission experiences though are more about building long-term, mutually beneficial relationships between people, churches, and organizations. Churches should choose to head back to places many times over the course of years, maybe decades, effectively turning short-term missions into long-term strategies.

Third, you need to balance overall impact on the culture you're traveling to, not just on your own group. One key aspect of the hard work required is to understand that as great of an impact short-term trips can have on changing you or your church, if the work done is inappropriate or not beneficial in the long run to the place you're going, it's not worth going.

Fourth, because its about relationships, deep listening is required. The most important thing Ronne said in her post was how they listened to the leaders of the orphanage, then abandoned their own plans based on what they heard. I can't emphasize this enough. Listen, and listen hard. Listen over the course of time, not just in one conversation. Listen and listen again, before ever planning a single trip or project.

Finally, let humility reign. Don't, under any circumstances, allow yourself to think that the serving/giving/loving involved is about you, a church of plenty (plenty of wealth, plenty of knowledge, plenty of  "good Christian stuff") taking what is not there to a people without. Be open to the idea that your project idea, your insight into how a culture needs your help, may not be accurate. Be ready to abandon ideas about projects altogether if necessary. If you're willing to do these things, I guarantee you that you will see how God has already been at work where you're going.

And you will likely begin to see how poor you really are.

A resource list:

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Leslie Newbiggin
Cross-Cultural Conflict  by Duane Elmer
Ministering Cross-Culturally by Sherwood Lingenfelter

Heading Home

I am very ready to be back with my family, but what an eye-opening trip to Guatemala! On Wednesday we started off the morning by meeting a pastor in a poor part of Guatemala city, the pastor of Iglesia Bautista Jerusalen. It's a neat church and building. The city reminds me a lot of some of the places I've been in Argentina. Across the street the church helps support a small junior high school, where indigenous kids ride buses for 2 hours and then walk for 20 minutes to come in the afternoons. The building is falling apart, but they have school every day. It would be great to figure out how to help build them a new building. We had lunch at a hotel with the president of the Baptist Convention here. Then we drove to Antigua, a beautiful old town. It's become a tourist hotspot for Europeans and Americans. We checked into the hotel and changed clothes, then drove up to Ajotenanga. It was about 30 minutes up the mountain, past a dormant volcano. There is a live volcano not far from here that hopefully I can see the next time I come to the country. In Ajotenanga we met at a church--really just an open air structure with sheets of tin for the roof. It was raining softly when we arrived, and about 60 kids and adults were already waiting there for us. We had a bag full of cookies and crackers and candy, which we distributed first, then we have away a bunch of rice, beans and sugar, plus toothbrushes and toothpaste--appropriate I guess after the candy and cookies. We sang and played and everyone hugged. It was now pouring rain, but probably more than 100 kids were there. It was very inspiring. We had to run about a block in the driving rain to get back to the vans, and everyone was soaked, but laughing and having fun.

I should probably tell you who "everyone" is--Chiqui is the in-country director, and a neat lady. Her husband is a doctor in Guatemala City. Amed is also on staff with Buckner. Tina is Chiqui's daughter and was a translator, Aida is another Buckner staffer. Then in addition to me, Josh and Albert Reyes there were 3 women from Texas. Karen Perry is a member at Park Cities in Dallas, and this was her 28th trip to Guatemala in the last 4 years. She's a great lady. In fact, you should go to Albert's blog at http://www.pandulce.typepad.com/ and read about Karen as the model for 21st century mission specialists. This time she brought two of her friends, Joyce and Patty. The three of them were fun to watch, especially Karen. As Patty said at dinner tonight, the kids in the orphanages and churches here treat her like a rock star. And 2 of Joyce's daughters are here, Monroe and Quincy.

On Thursday we visited Manchen, the girls orphanage run by the government but where Buckner does some humanitarian aid. We met several members of Christ Church in Tyler, who were building a new pergola in the yard of the orphanage. There are about 100 girls here, many with special needs. A bunch of them asked me to play futbol americano with them--I need to bring them a ball when I come back. Virtually all of these girls were there either because they were orphans or because their family abused them. Tragic stories.

In the afternoon we did a little shopping, then drove back to Guatemala City. We had an impromptu staff training session with the in-country staff and interns, with Albert and I sharing various aspects of leadership, teamwork, and the vision of Buckner. That was both fun and challenging, as the group was split into thirds--1/3 speaking only Spanish, 1/3 only English, and 1/3 bilingual. But we laughed and talked and strategized about what might could be in Guatemala.

All in all it was a great trip. I can't wait to go back.

The best travel advice around!

My friend--I hesitate to use the word friend, since I have only met her once and talked via email a few times, but acquaintance just doesn't sound good--my friend over at Texas in Africa had a blog post recently about going to Africa for the first time. It's worth reading just for the the fun (she's usually very funny) and for the application for any trip out of the US.

It doesn't matter where Americans go, we're bound to be the most arrogant people there. Even Christians. Maybe especially Christians. See TIA points #4, 5, 19, 23, and 35. My wife and I went to Paris (France, not Texas) for our 10th anniversary. People always ask if we saw any arrogant people in France. We did, but virtually all of them were Americans. Same in South America.

The truth is that everyone is proud of where they're from. And they should be. But Americans seem to have a unique way of displaying that pride in a way that puts down every other culture. It really only shows how small we can be.

So go here and read TIA's 38 points for going to Africa for the first time. It's worth it.